


All We Know

by darnianwayne (caersun)



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Damian finds out Dick is "dead", Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, POV Second Person, it goes about as well as you'd expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 10:47:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4873873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caersun/pseuds/darnianwayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian is back, but Dick is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All We Know

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Emily Dickinson's 96th:
> 
> "My life closed twice before its close—  
> It yet remains to see  
> If Immortality unveil  
> A third event to me
> 
> So huge, so hopeless to conceive  
> As these that twice befell.  
> Parting is all we know of heaven,  
> And all we need of hell."
> 
>   
> 

  


It's like lighting, opening your eyes and seeing Father’s face, filled with wide-eyed wonder. The emotion white-hot. Frightening. Beautiful.

Instantaneous. Over before it has even begun.

"Father," you say.

Smiling up at him. The break in the storm, as easy as breathing.

And he smiles back, wan and relieved, and around you, the others droop with similar relief, already beginning to step forward, all teary eyes and shining smiles.

Your muscles feel stiff, unnatural, laden down with disuse and newness. Your limbs are fresh, your skin unblemished and raw. The gaping hole in your chest is gone, like it had never been there at all. It feels awkward, sitting up, being blinded by the too-bright lights of the Cave.

But then Father collapses backward, exhaustion and magic.

"Father!" you scream.

Somehow, between the darkness and the light, you had forgotten: the Mission never ends.

Of course not.

The superpowers come as a surprise, though not a wholly unwelcome one. Suddenly, you find yourself _flying_ and rescuing Father, crowing with the victory, the invincibility. And you have never felt so giddy, not in the field, not even in those late glory days when two Batmen ran the streets of Gotham and you and Grayson would trade insults and quips over patrol. It is surreal, to a degree that borders on unreality, but the relief and happiness is plain as day on the faces around you. You make it back to the Cave, and somehow, you are all no worse for wear, uninjured. The unexpectedness of that is enough to get you through the rounds of hugs and physical contact and the familiar adrenaline of initial danger.

But once you’ve returned to the Manor and extricated yourself from yet another fond shoulder-tap, a yawn rips itself out of your throat unbidden. The exhaustion aches and screams, all the way down into your bones, drooping your eyelids until it is hard to keep them open. Which makes no sense, really, as sleep and darkness are the last things you should want after everything. Regardless, Father is quick to usher you upstairs. Well wishes and teasing barbs follow you, still in those same high, breathy tones that settle deep in your gut, festering and prickling. Your lips curl, caught between a smile and a grimace.

Strange, in every sense.

You do not expect everything to have remained the same in the time you have been gone, but the changes are stark anyway. Todd, for one, seems to have fallen back into Father's good graces. Has even managed to cement an unlikely friendship with Drake, of all people, if their familiarity down in the Cave is any indication. Even Barbara, their ever-aloof compatriot, is closer than she has ever been to Batman's inner circle.

It is their relation to _you_ , however, that has made the greatest pivot, and the change makes you unbalanced, leaving you on unfamiliar ground.

Strange indeed, of these people who have risked everything to bring you back.

You shiver as you climb the stairs, face numb and cold, which is only to be expected. You have lost muscle mass, your fresh skin is newly sensitive. It will take time to reacclimatize to the land of the living, that's what Todd said. He would know.

At your feet, Titus leaps and whines, craving your attention. You indulgently scratch at his ear, smiling softly. Alfred is staring at you, primly, from the upper floor, but the old tomcat still butts your leg as you pass, his small show of fondness. Below, you can vaguely hear the soft tenor of Father's voice, packing away for the night, dismissing and thanking the others.

 _Your allies_ , you think, firmly, and neatly sidestep Titus in his enthusiasm. _Your partners. Your family._

The word gives you pause. You wonder when you actually started to believe they are yours. You wonder if the word _family_ will ever not feel like deceit, like a foolishness and a lie both, too good to be true.

Your room is the same, when you reach it. Same neutral-colored duvet, same swords over the headboard, same ignored dog and cat beds in the corner. Even your easel is mounted just as you left it, the baseline colors of the Gotham skyline on the canvas. Everything is exactly in place, not a speck of dust, the air fresh and clean. Tuckered into your bedside drawer, same as always, is a neat pair of pajamas.

Something in your chest twinges at the sight. You try not to think about it: the cleanliness, the lack of dust, the freshly laundered scent of cotton. What it all must mean — of Pennyworth’s ingrained habit to keep house and perpetually clean away your messes. It brings back the old man’s face tonight, his dignity temporarily suspended as he looked at you and his eyes shined with joy and he murmured loving pleasantries into your hair.

So you do not think on it.

One of Father's more astute coping methods — for if the problem is out of mind, then you might never have to confront it. Instead, you crash backwards into the well-worn mattress in haste after scrubbing your face raw and wrestling into the pair of pajamas, and stare at the ceiling.

Titus lunges after you, momentarily dislodging Alfred from his spot settled neatly against your hip. Alfred hisses and swipes at the air near Titus’s muzzle, settling down again only when Titus looks reasonably abashed. Both animals have refused to leave your side for extended periods of time, and, mindful of your grip, you curl around the lumps of warm fur with a grateful smirk and promptly fall asleep.

Your dreams are nonsensical. Flashes of light in profound darkness. Mirrors and beads and boxes. An incomplete set of watery smiles.

When you awake hours later, still tired but rested, nestled deep into your blankets, Father has already been up for what you suspect is the greater part of the morning, which is certainly rare in and of itself. Or at least it used to be. He looks up at you from the settee at the foot of your bed and smiles his small smile: a simple thinning of lips that curl at the ends and crinkle his glistening eyes. There is a thick open file in his lap. He looks exhausted, gray spots beneath his eyes, but the smile is genuine and private.

You stare back at him. Your own lip twitches, mirroring his expression. You feel overheated from Titus and Alfred’s combined body heat, sweat pooling at the back of knees. Then, your stomach churns and gurgles loudly into the quiet.

Father laughs. It is a deep rich sound, something rare in your presence.

Pressure collects behind your eyes. With effort, you hold it back, and grimace sheepishly instead.

You are hungry. It is morning and time for breakfast. These are simple, reasonable facts. You focus on them, because they are easy. The power hums in your veins and thrums through your chest, a staccato march, and every time you look at those happily sad, tired blue eyes still staring at you like they can’t quite believe you’re real, a part of you coils and shrinks away, ashamed and fearful and undeserving. Everything is the same, but that is not true. So everything must be different, yet it’s not, not really, and your Father is beckoning you with a wave of his hand, tucking the file under his arm, and you wonder, idly — what case is it? It is yours? Perhaps it is another case, a new one. After all, Gotham never has a shortage of crime. The scum of the earth have gone on without you, the world has kept spinning, and Bruce Wayne is waiting at your doorframe, now, lifting an eyebrow, a shadow of worry creeping on his face.

You swallow, and stand to follow him, Titus and Alfred close behind.

You try not to think farther than your own stomach, and nod at Father to lead the way.

It is only when you’re busy biting into the juicy flesh of your berry platter and have chased it down with a scalding gulp of Pennyworth’s earl grey, determined to put your mind far off anything except the food in front of you, that you realize. It is a small, obvious realization — silly, really — made when you glance up and note the missing annoyingly bright cardboard box of Crocky Crunch cereal.

So you swallow and ask, curiously, “Where’s Dick?”

The effect is instantaneous. Father and Pennyworth’s faces shutter, pleasant expressions falling away, and they suddenly, deliberately refuse to meet your eye.

"Well," says Pennyworth, softly. His fingers have gone tight over the ceramic of his favorite off-white tea pot, straining his knuckles. A drop of earl grey drips from the spout, staining the white linen. Pennyworth does not even seem to notice. He does not continue speaking.

Your brows lift, questioning. You look at your Father, but he is only frowning, half-glaring at the centerpiece of the dining table — an ugly vase filled with sticks of incense and shrubbery — as if it has personally offended him.

You take a bite of your jam-heavy toast to give them time, chewing methodically, never once lowering your gaze, staring intently. Your eyebrows pull together, unconsciously.

Slowly, the pieces come together in your mind. The unease of last night suddenly returns with a vengeance, settling like a stone in the pit of your stomach and chilling your skin. Your tongue feels heavy with bread crumbs and sticky preserves, sparing pinpricks stabbing into the soft flesh of your palette, gelatinous sweetness sticking to your gums. You swallow dryly and attempt to pool saliva into your mouth to wash away the remains of food, but your teeth feel like plastic, inorganic and hard.

You know.

Of course, you _know_ , because you know Grayson and the man might be fickle and overly affectionate and a bit of a fool, but he is not cruel — at least, never to you. And this — this is cruelty of the worst sort, denying you of his presence — your best friend, your _first_ friend, your partner, your _Batman_ — when you feel like the world might actually fall away at any moment and someone will reveal to you you’re not truly alive but only rotting in the ground, being forced to live out this mockery of life where your father smiles at you and your family doesn’t hate you and you are _happy_ , because this can’t possible be real so it must be some sort of hellish punishment, where you’re cursed to forever live out the things that never had been and never will be, because that’s what you’re destined for, isn’t it? Not a second chance. Not for you, Damian Wayne, killer. You are meant for hell.

(You are aware, distantly, that you are panicking. It does not matter.)

This can’t be real.

"Where is Grayson?" you ask again. Your voice clips the words. Your hand is shaking. Titus, as if sensing your discomfort from underneath the table, nudges at your knee with his moist nose. You hardly notice.

Father flinches, in his way: a small jerk of his chin. Pennyworth stares hard at his teapot. You refrain from shouting.

"Tell me."

Father’s jaw clenches, stretching the smooth, freshly shaved skin. Then, abruptly, two very intent eyes are fixed on you, hard and cool. You straighten on impulse under that gaze, heart hammering. Your breath stutters.

"There was an accident," says Batman’s voice, not Father’s. It’s dull, matter-of-fact, and you suddenly remember hating it, that voice, on those early nights of your and Father’s initial partnership.

"No," you blurt before you realize you’ve said anything at all. Your head is shaking, jerking side to side in small bursts. You blink. "No." You search Father’s face, frantically, looking for some sort of denial, but he is wearing Batman’s mask now, cowl-less stone, rigid and unforgiving. His eyes have stopped shining.

"Damian," he says the same way he used to sternly say _Robin_ , and you fling away at the sound, chair crashing behind you. The wood splinters.

"No!" you scream, though you know. Of course you know; how could you not? It is so obvious, now that you can see the signs of absence — a missing bike out of the corner of your eye in the Cave, a Nightwing suit that is very much the same as the one you remember, despite having entertained Grayson’s chatter about changing the design (again), his missing laughter, your unruffled hair. Metal digs into your palm for a half-moment, and the fork in your grip snaps in half, loud in the room filled with your breathing. Shrapnel digs into your flesh, soft as a feather’s touch.

"Grayson isn’t — he wasn’t —" The words will not come. Breath is stuck in your throat. You try again. Fail. "He was unconscious! Safe! I protected him. I didn’t — He was… Heretic—”

You don’t realize how badly you’re shaking until Father is there, grip fierce on your shoulders, forcing down the worst of the trembling. His mouth is moving sharply, nose scrunched as it always is when he shouts. You can’t hear anything he’s saying over the ringing in your ears.

"I couldn’t protect him." The words are barely there, only murmurs of air pushing past your lips. "I-I failed…"

In your chest — a phantom sensation — you can feel the push of Heretic's sword. It is hard to draw air into your lungs. The world is blurry. You cover your face with your hands, horrified — though at what in particular is hard to say.

Worse than hell, you think and realize only Grayson would appreciate your morbid humor at a time like this. A bark of laughter rips itself out of your mouth, unbidden, choking up out of your throat; it sounds like a sob.

This is worse — so much _worse_ than the nightmare you can hardly remember now — because Grayson was never supposed to suffer for your sins, your failures — never him, who gave you chance after chance after _chance_ even in the moments when your own Father would not have. Worse, because you had promised him and he had promised you and you’d been the best there ever was, together.

Worse, because Father is still shouting and Pennyworth has left the table and abandoned his little pot; because Titus is whimpering, ears back against his skull, and Alfred is curled around your ankle, mewling, half-confused half-comforting. Worse, because this isn’t like dreams or hallucinations or breaks from reality — because those you've dealt with and those you know how to handle with their surroundings dull and nondescript and nonsensical; because activity is still happening around you.

The sun is shining through the porch, sharpening the furniture around you, and the air is light with near imperceptible motes of dust, choking up in your throat. Hair tickles your nape; the earliest tears have already dried and begun to crust the corner of your eyes; your throat aches around the lump; the pain in your chest is somewhere between the unforgiving pressure of your lungs and that of your hammering heart.

And this is all real — horribly, achingly, definitively _real_.

And worse, so much worse, because you are alive and Grayson is not.

  


* * *

  


Your fingers have long gone numb when you hear the crunch of footsteps approaching. Stubbornly, you stuff your hands deeper into your pockets and bury your nose into the scarf wrapped tightly around your neck. You don't turn.

"You'll catch your death out here," the voice behind you says dryly, and the footsteps pause approximately two meters away, distance enough that even he would be unable to reach you too easily.

You snort, breath misting in the air. Barely, you swallow a stinging reply and instead manage to say, shortly, "You’ve developed a sense of humor."

The voice sighs deeply, long-suffering.

You stare moodily at the words etched in stone. The wind whips around you, merciless, kicking up specks of thrice frozen-over snow. Your eyes ache, and your fingers twitch. Your neck is cold.

Eventually, there is a shift of hesitation, more crunching, and then Father is standing beside you, eyes fixed determinedly ahead. Unconsciously, you shift weight to one foot, drawing closer.

"He wouldn't want you out here, you know," says Father, at length. "Alone. Brooding."

 _Mourning_ , you tack on, eyes narrowing.

"Well, then," you say, and you are distantly pleased to find your voice is even, "it is a good thing Grayson can't want things anymore." You blink. "Saves him the trouble of wasting his breath of whining for things he can't have."

You can feel Father's gaze on your face, searching.

Finally, Father says, "You have been out here for three hours, Damian," after his search is through; you wonder what he has found that makes his voice gentle instead of reproaching. "You must be freezing. Come inside. Alfred's made tea."

"No, thank you." With effort, you unclench your jaw. "I'm fine," you add in afterthought.

Again, Father sighs. His eyes return to the grave, and you feel more than see his gaze twitch to the high stone pillar marking the next plot over. You don't look; you have spent enough time glaring and avoiding that particular plot — _your_ plot. Your grave. All of your attention now is for the handsome marble gravestone in front of you, sitting innocently on its base, already collecting a fine dusting of snow.

Soon, the tapered stone will again be completely covered, washed out in white, as it had been the first time you stumbled from the Manor and carelessly swiped at the multiple layers to be sure — to have the solid proof of this nightmare reality. You were more meticulous when you returned to the graveyard later after screaming yourself raw at Father — _how could you not tell me?_ — using your coat and gloves and scarf and getting on your hands and knees to clear away every last piece of ice encrusted into the stone and surrounding grass.

Your temper flares as you remember, thinking again of Grayson's great parade of so-called friends and the obvious neglect of his grave. How could they have let it go so long without a dusting? How could they have refused to visit? How could they have forgotten Grayson — laughing, boisterous, kind _Dick Grayson_ — when they had remembered, against all hope…

You think of your own grave, tended and clear, less than ten paces away. Feel something disgusting twist your gut.

 _When they had remembered me?_ you think.

You press your lips together, glaring balefully, and say nothing. Mercy of mercies, neither does Father. You do not think you would be able to stand his awkward comforting for long. Eventually, he even leaves, grasping your shoulder firmly as he goes and saying, "Don't stay out too long."

He is only gone a few seconds when Titus comes trotting up to you, snuffling at your hip. No doubt, the presence of your Great Dane is Father's preference that you not be alone in the cold. A ridiculous sentiment, but Titus makes good company, mostly silent and dark, standing at your side for a long time.

You are unsurprised when the there are more footsteps some time later, and Pennyworth appears with a small tray.

"Master Damian," says Pennyworth.

"Pennyworth."

"It will be getting dark soon."

"That is generally how the passage of time works," you say.

Pennyworth sighs. He steps up, placing the tray at your feet. "Should you have need of them, young sir," he says.

You glance down, at the tray containing a silver thermos, replacement scarf, and four hot packets. Your nose feels numb.

"Thank you," you say. Then: "Titus."

Titus looks up at you, tail wagging faintly. You are not fooled. You can see the small shivers in his shoulders, the trembles that reach down his flank. Stupid, loyal mutt.

"Go," you say. "Inside."

It takes some insistence, yours and Pennyworth's both, to finally get Titus back inside the Manor. Then, you are left alone again, you and the stone.

In a small fit of immaturity, you kick the thermos over, up and off the tray so it is nearly buried white in the snow. It gives you only a small sense of satisfaction, a small chaos, when all you want to do is destroy everything in this graveyard. You breathe roughly out of your nose, a small plume of moisture smoking out and away. You kneel, petulant and heartsore, and grab the scarf. It is thick, made of fine wool material. Your father's scarf, you suspect. You raise it up and begin to use the scarf to sweep at the gravestone one more time, until you can just make out the epitaph again.

Begrudgingly, you pick up the packets and stuff them in your pockets as you stand. Instantly, your fingers tingle with the renewed flow of warm blood.

 _Richard John Grayson_ , the gravestone mocks you.

You sniff.

  


**Author's Note:**

>   
>  Read on [tumblr.](http://darnianwayne.tumblr.com/post/122370188623/all-we-know-fic)


End file.
